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1956
             
The year 1956 was a turning point in Russian history. During the 20th Communist party congress, Nikita Khrushchev laid bare the many crimes committed by Josef Stalin and his henchmen, primarily the purge of millions of innocent people - the first such public denunciation of the man who ruled the country for thirty years… The so-called Secret Report gave a start to what was later called "the Khrushchev thaw" which considerably liberalized the social and political life in the Soviet Union.
In September the Soviet authorities gave the green light to a nationwide celebration of the 50th birthday of Dmitry Shostakovich. A big concert was held in Moscow with solemn congratulations and gifts showered on the composer who only recently had been officially stigmatized for his alleged "formalism". To top it all off, they gave him the country's highest award, the Order of Lenin. The country's foremost symphony orchestra, alternatively led on that day by Moscow's three leading conductors, then came out on stage of the Conservatory Big Hall playing, among other things, the Violin Concerto Dmitry Shostakovich wrote in 1948, in the very midst of the vicious defamation campaign being waged against him by the powers that be. Hating to antagonize his critics even further, Shostakovich made no mention of his new work and, now, eight years on, the Violin Concerto finally saw daylight…
David Oistrakh was the first to play the Concerto in public and it was soon taken up by other leading violinists as well.
Meanwhile, another aficionado of Shostakovich, composer Georgy Sviridov, turned to poems by the great Russian poet Sergei Yesenin. Sviridov's new venture raised many eyebrows and with a good reason because the early-century versemaster had virtually been banned for several decades now. Yesenin's death was shrouded in mystery and it looked like, in a couple of years, his very name would hardly be remembered at all… Georgy Sviridov was one of the first Russian composers to put Yesenin's verse to music with his dazzling and powerful 1956 effort he titled A Dedication to Sergei Yesenin.
On December 27 the Kirov Theater in Leningrad was hosting the first night performance of Aram Khachaturian's Spartak ballet. Khachaturian was commissioned by the Bolshoi Theater to write the ballet about a II century B. C. uprising of Ancient Roman serfs way back in 1940, but the work was held up by the war and then by other compositions. When the score was finally complete, the Bolshoi company took their time starting the rehearsals and so the composer eventually took the score to Leningrad where it was gratefully taken up by choreographer Leonid Yakobson.
In a bold departure from the traditional classical idiom, Yakobson blended together the antique and modern dance. The more conservatively minded dancers started crying foul saying that it had nothing to do with ballet. Many ballet buffs were equally unhappy dismissing the whole production as a "pantomime". In retrospect, however, it is all too clear now that Leonid Yakobson was simply moving ahead of his time creating a ballet of the future.
The West was increasingly waking up to the Russians' larger than life mastery, especially after the Bolshoi Ballet's triumphal performance in Britain launched the tradition of regular such visits to the British Isles.
The Soviet State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kosnstantin Ivanov enjoyed glowing reviews performing at the Warsaw Autumn festival of modern music in Poland…
…And the Leningrad Philharmonic's Symphony Orchestra led by Yevgeny Mravinsky won high praise during their triumphal tour of Europe. "A world-class outfit," raved the Wiener Zeitung newspaper, "It's one of the best orchestras around…"
In the same year of 1956 a number of world-renowned European and American musicians made their first performances in Russia, among them the violinists Isaak Stern, the Gewandhaus orchestra from Leipzig under the baton of the formidable Franz Konvichny, the Philadelphia Symphony orchestra led by Eugene Ormandy and the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles Munch.
Young Russian singers were also taking on the world with Kira Izotova and Alexander Vedernikov sweeping the top awards at the prestigious Schumann Competition in East Germany and the 28 year old pianist Lev Vlasenko winning the Ferenz Liszt contest in Budapest.
17 leading musicians came together in Moscow to set up this country's first chamber orchestra led by the famed viola player Rudolf Barshai who had never tried his hand at conducting before. On April 2 the city's music lovers saw the first performance of the MCO which is still very much alive today…
A day earlier, on April 1, the 30 year old mezzo soprano Irina Arkhipova was making her debut at Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. A certified architect and a conservatory graduate, Arkhipova had previously worked at the Sverdlovsk Opera Theater in the Urals and, in 1955, she won a gold medal taking part in a music competition in Warsaw. And now she was singing on the stage of Russia's oldest musical theater offering a stirring performance of Georges Bizet's timeless Carmen opera…
In 1956 the 40 year old Oleg Lundstrom took up the reins of Russia's new orchestra of popular music which was largely made up of his Chinese-born friends, all children of Russian builders of the Far Eastern Railway. The orchestra was originally set up in China, in 1947 the musicians relocated to Russia settling down in Kazan on the Volga and now, in Moscow, they formed what was essentially a jazz band…
Oleg Lundstrom's band is one of this country's longest-serving bands and they are still very popular in Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union…
Also in 1956 there came out a sports documentary - a rather uninspiring effort that was only lighted up by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi's Moscow Nights song which has since become one of the best-loved songs ever written in this country…
On New Year's Eve the young film director Eldar Ryazanov turned out his hilarious Carnival Night comedy. Millions of people across the nation immediately fell in love with the movie where the young actress Lyudmila Gurchenko sang a song about people who should always be cheerful and happy… Not a single New Year has since come and gone without people all across Russia enjoying the film's funny antics and the freshly invigorating songs by Anatoly Lepin ...
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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